Centrally planned leftist protests fizzle

by Mark Luedtke

Mark Luedtke

The leftists are desperate, angry and jealous. The 20th century will go down in history as the century in which socialism produced the most war casualties and mass murder in human history. The Marxists, socialists and hardcore leftists were forced into the closet. They’ve been planning and organizing behind the scenes, quietly infecting the environmentalist movement and our health care system as well as every other sector of our economy. They control both political parties. By printing money, raising taxes, increasing spending, increasing debt, increasing regulations and fighting never-ending wars, they’ve driven our economy into a new depression, but they haven’t been able to come out of the closet and make their socialist demands in protests like they did last century.

When the tea party exploded on the scene after the TARP bailouts, the leftists were shocked and angered. It was practically unheard of for people to protest for smaller government. For the entire 20th century, the leftists had the protest scene all to themselves. That’s because people who wanted smaller government had jobs. They couldn’t protest because they had to work. But the people on welfare had plenty of time on their hands to protest for bigger handouts. The welfare state, by design, produces ready-made protesters for bigger government. But after the economic collapse in 2008, lots of newly unemployed people had time to protest for smaller government.

The grassroots Tea Party movement adopted the protest tactic and did it better than the leftists. They gained press coverage and political power then used that power at the ballot box to thwart the leftist agenda.

That isn’t what the leftist central planners had planned. They had been following the playbooks of Marxist agitators Saul Alinsky and Cloward and Piven. These Marxists developed plans for collapsing a capitalist economy under the burden of government. The 2008 election cycle was supposed to be the culmination of all their efforts. Both Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama were Alinsky disciples. Obama had learned, taught and implemented Alinsky’s tactics his entire adult life working for ACORN. Clinton had written her senior thesis praising Alinsky. Regardless of who won the primary, because George Bush was so unpopular and John McCain was such a terrible candidate, leftist leaders were assured of putting one of their own in the White House.

And President Obama has done his part. He hired a bunch of leftist czars to amass as much power in the White House as possible. He dramatically increased the burden of government on Americans, ensuring our economy continues to go downhill. He increased spending from 20 percent of GDP to 25 percent. He exploded government debt. He piled on dozens of major, expensive regulations, to further cripple our economy. He escalated our wars. He worked with union leaders to organize unemployed youths for protests.
But despite the best efforts of the leftist central planners, no leftists protested. In frustration, President Obama finally instructed his supporters to quit whining and march when he spoke to the Congressional Black Caucus a couple weeks ago.

So they did. The Occupy Wall Street movement was born.

The most surprising aspect of the Occupy protests is how anemic they are compared to the muscular Tea Parties. When I attended the first a Dayton Tea Party rally on Courthouse Square a couple of years ago, it was packed. I estimated 3,000 people attended. Saturday around 100 people reportedly attended the Occupy Dayton event. Organizers in D.C. have to pay protesters.

Some criticize the protesters for lack of a coherent message or demands. That’s because they can’t say what they really want. If they say they support Marxism or want more government handouts, they lose all credibility. So they make vague demands for a living wage and social justice.

The saddest part is that the protesters are right to be angry that government bailed out Wall Street. That’s what galvanized the Tea Party. But these protesters draw the wrong conclusions. The corporations didn’t steal our money for the bailouts. The government did. If a dad took the piggy bank from one son and gave it to another, nobody would blame the son. We’d blame the dad. He has all the power, and he stole the money. In our case, the government has all the power, it stole our money and we should blame it.

What these leftists don’t understand is that corporate power comes from the government. Corporations have no ability to rob us on their own. The bigger the government gets, the more wealth it funnels into the hands of the few. The bigger government advocated by the Occupy protesters would make the wealth disparity worse, not better, because the bigger the government grows, the bigger and wealthier corporations grow. The solution is to dramatically reduce the size and scope of government so wealth will flow back to the people.

Mark Luedtke is an electrical engineer with a degree from the University of Cincinnati and currently works for a Dayton attorney. He can be reached at MarkLuedtke@DaytonCityPaper.com.

There is no such thing as a Czar in American government, you will not find it on anyone’s job description nor is anyone hired into this position. The term czar, in relation to American government, are a creation of the media. So, when people in the media question the abundance of czars … I find it laughable as there wouldn’t be any czars if the media had called them something else.

Also, you characterize the movement as being both violent and racist, yet don’t provide any specific examples. I realize this is an opinion piece, but as someone who went to school to work in media … I also know you should back your claim up with evidence.

As for the illegitimacy of the movement based upon its use of things made by corporations. Does the Tea Party not drive on publicly maintained road, do they not send their children to public schools, I would imagine some of you hold degrees from public universities. The human experience is filled with duality, and to break down The Occupy Movement for using privately made goods would be the same as breaking down the Tea Party Movement for using anything that comes from the public sector.

I would also argue that your closing paragraph spits in the face of theories reasoned by several political economists, and is essentially political sloganeering.

Do you even know who Saul Alinsky is? I’m sure you’ve never read Rules for Radicals or, for that matter, anything he’s ever written that wasn’t plucked out of context from his body of work and conveniently delivered on your plate by Fox News like a Big Mac.

1. Alinsky never affiliated himself with Marxism or any other political movement. In fact, he disdained the rigidity of the labels.

2. Alinsky’s work dealt with organizing poor Americans to improve their conditions within the political systems in place in our society. You apparently think that getting poor people to vote equals oppressive Marxism. How nice.

3. “These Marxists developed plans for collapsing a capitalist economy under the burden of government.” – you know that we all know you’re inventing this, right? For the record, saying what you think would be fun if it was true doesn’t make it true. If it did, I’d be the Queen of France. If you have evidence of this beyond speculation, present it.

4. The government’s money IS our money. They aren’t stealing it so they can do whatever they want, they’re using that money to try to improve our country. Whether they’re good at it or not, that’s a separate question. If you hate taxes so much, explain to us how you envision a government running without them. I’ll wait.

I challenge you to substantively respond to these issues. You thoroughly and consistently ignore facts, bend reality to suit your imagination, and grant yourself license to repeatedly assert an unsubstantiated worldview simply because you hate paying taxes and anyone who isn’t you. To quote Alinsky:

“One of the most important things in life is what Judge Learned Hand described as ‘that ever-gnawing inner doubt as to whether you’re right.’ If you don’t have that, if you think you’ve got an inside track to absolute truth, you become doctrinaire, humorless and intellectually constipated. The greatest crimes in history have been perpetrated by such religious and political and racial fanatics, from the persecutions of the Inquisition on down to Communist purges and Nazi genocide.”